


i scream, you scream

by kyrilu



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Memories, Family, Introspection, M/M, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 04:26:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17860256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: One of Ben’s favorite childhood memories is eating ice cream with his family after they’d saved Paris from the rampaging Eiffel Tower.





	i scream, you scream

**Author's Note:**

> This is really indulgent - more tell than show, and I meant it to be more shippy but I kind of pulled back a little because family feelings - but it feels so good to be writing and fannish again. 
> 
> A mishmash of the show, the comics, and random headcanons of mine.

I.

 

One of Ben’s favorite childhood memories is eating ice cream with his family after they’d saved Paris from the rampaging Eiffel Tower.

The owner of a nearby ice cream parlor invites them after the battle, speaking in rapid fire French, and their father welcomes the opportunity. The French media photographs them while they say how _fun_ it is to be a superhero, how _cool_ it is to train under Reginald Hargreeves, in between bites of chocolate and strawberry and pistachio and caramel.

Ben remembers sneaking out long tentacles to snatch his siblings’ cones to steal bites of theirs, and they’d all laughed and let him. Proudly wearing those stupid masks, those stupid uniforms, and Ben - Number Six - naively thinks that this fighting will be worth it in the end, if they were always able to have ice cream together.

 

II.

 

They don’t get presents for Christmas, though they do get birthday presents. Usually they’re practical things, presumably issued under their father’s direction - new uniforms that fit their growing bodies; new knives for Number Two; new books and textbooks and pencils and pens - but other times, there’s more of a personal touch that Number Six thinks that either Pogo or Mother are responsible for.

For example: Number One gets a telescope and posters covered with stars and planets to hang up in his bedroom. Number Two gets a bass guitar in his favorite color. Number Seven gets a silver bracelet with a crystal violin charm. Number Five gets tapes of those boring old classic silent films that he likes. Number Three gets makeup and frilly dresses. Number Four also gets makeup and frilly dresses.

When it comes to Number Six, he receives a variety of things. Model airplanes. Elaborate puzzles with thousands of pieces. A radio that he takes apart, puts together, and toys with the frequencies, hearing snippets of other transmissions, other lives, police chatter and truckers and morse code and emergency announcements and jazz enthusiasts. Comics that have nothing to do with the Umbrella Academy, nothing about modern day superheroes in masks and spandex - they’re about knights and warriors and gods and princesses.

Once, Number Four gets a ouija board, which he thinks is the funniest thing in the world - this is before he’s thirteen, before the crypt, before the drugs, _before_ \- and he lets Number Six give it a try.

Number Six spells out, _F-O-U-R-S-M-E-L-L-S,_ and Four wrests the ouija board from him and spells out, _S-I-X-I-S-S-T-U-P-I-D_. They go on back and forth like that, Four insisting, no, a ghost is saying this _for real,_ he’s the one with the powers, and Six summons tentacles to grab the board back, and they’re tangled together in the wriggling slimy mass of it all, while Five walks by and dryly says something about the ideomotor effect.

 

III.

 

They choose their names when they're twelve, when Number Three announces, “We need names.” She’s been dreaming of being a celebrity even then, like singers and actresses and models in magazines and movies, and she seems to come to the conclusion that she can’t just be known as Number Three or The Rumor.

Number One is uncomfortable and baffled at first - “We already have the names that Dad gave us” - but since it’s Number Three who said it, what Three wanted, she got, and everyone knows that One will do whatever Three says.

(One and Three are a world unto themselves, though nothing quite definite appears to happen between them. One is too caught up sucking up to Dad, Three is daydreaming of fame beyond the team, and together they play secret and star-crossed. Five sometimes coughs, _Westermarck_ , when they’re too obviously distracted, staring at each other for a beat too long, which makes Seven laugh while everyone else blinks in confusion.)

Anyways - they name themselves, all except Five, who shrugs and says, “I don’t need a name,” and goes back to eating his fluffernutter sandwich and reading a treatise about faster than light travel.

They never tell each other the origins - whether from books or history or suggestions from Mom or names that they think their birth parents would’ve given them.

Normal names. You’re not a thing to be counted; you’re not a title that supervillains spit out once you round them up.

 _The Horror._ As if Ben isn’t a boy who needs Mother’s help to fix his uniform tie, as if he isn’t a kid who likes to piece together puzzles and read comics and eat chocolate chip cookies, as if he doesn’t cry after having nightmares of dark creatures who tear their way out of his body from underneath his skin, claws and scales and horns and eyes.

Pogo and Mother take their decisions in a stride and call them by their chosen names. Father never does.

 

IV.

 

Father takes Number Six hunting. He says he wants to teach Six to have fine motor control and good aim and fast reflexes.

It starts small. Father lets a pigeon out of a cage and tells Six to crush it in midair. Number Six does, wincing as the bird shrieks in his clutches.

Then Father takes him to the park in the dead of the night, both of them outfitted in night vision goggles, and it’s a duck and a squirrel and a crow.

And then a stray dog darts through the trees, and Father says, “This one, Number Six.”

Six hesitates.

“ _Number Six._ Don’t you want to be like your brother? Number One is a good boy who’s strong and smart and does what he’s told.”

Six tries to be as fast as possible, snapping its neck as he efficiently as he can.

After, he can't help but let out shaking sobs that wrack his entire body.

When Six returns home, covered in blood, he wonders if Four can see the animal ghosts hovering around him like fireflies. He wishes he could tell Four to say sorry for him.

 

V.

 

There are other expeditions, too. Visits that Ben never tells his siblings about, when his father takes him to the elevator that doesn’t bring him to a basement, but to unknown places beyond.

His father shows him warped creatures from alien planets and primordial dimensions - some of which he’s already seen in his dreams - and says, “This is what you could become,” with a low reverence in his voice.

Ben tries. He tries and tries, and there’s talons protruding from his viscera, there’s his bones reshaping into ridges, there’s his tongue elongating, there's his teeth sharpening, there’s something glowing red behind his pupils, but the foreign limbs flicker and he vomits all over his shiny black shoes. The Horror, horrified.

 

VI.

When Number Five disappears, Ben sends a message through radio frequencies, across airwaves - _di-di-di-di-dit_ \- _di-di-di-di-dit -_ Five, Five, Five, Five, over and over again like a prayer.

 

VII.

 

It’s not all bad.

This is what Ben thinks, as he dies:

_\--crouched over his radio with Luther, both of them listening to aeronautical frequencies of satellites broadcasting to the earth--_

_\--building a fort with Five, using his coiling appendages to hold up the cold walls as Five explains famous strategies used by ancient armies -- they're planning to ambush their siblings with snowballs--_

_\--racing across the mansion grounds with Diego, shoes thudding against the grass, and then Ben laughs and sprouts reptilian wings - ‘You’re cheating!’ -- it was the first time he’d ever been able to manifest something like that, and Father had tried to make him repeat it, nearly pushing him out of the window until Pogo intervened, but he’d never been able to -- still, he will never forget the joy of flying--_

_\--chess games against Allison while they both take cookies from a plate, Mother’s secret treats, contrary to their diet plan - she never rumors him during games, at least he doesn’t think so, victories and losses split near evenly-- checkmate--_

_\--bent over a two thousand piece puzzle of a sprawling orchestra with Vanya, and she tells him the differences between violins and cellos and violas and mandolins--_

_\--watching as Klaus dances and dances with invisible ghosts, whirling and spinning, and then Klaus grabs Ben and sweeps him off his feet, which is_ unfair, _Ben’s always been smaller and shorter, Klaus getting his growth spurt early, and isn’t that eyeliner streaked underneath Klaus’ eyes, isn’t that a light gloss glinting on his mouth, and isn’t his hands very warm--_

_\--ice cream in Paris--_

Ice cream in Paris.

 

VIII.

 

The family drifts away -- falls apart.

Klaus destroys himself in a hundred thousand ways, and all Ben can do is watch.

This isn’t just about wanting to stop Klaus from taking another hit, downing another shot, swapping blowjobs for pills in grimy alleyways, stealing anything he can pawn for cash for more drugs, more alcohol-- this is also about how Klaus whimpers and shudders as he dreams of the crypt, and how Ben can’t even hold his hand.

 

IX.

 

When Ben’s fist makes contact with Klaus’ jaw, he thinks, stunned, _I can touch him now._ He thinks again, _I can touch him now._ He doesn’t want to think about what this means.  

 

X.

 

After they practice hand clap games that they had played as children - Klaus lays on the floor, arms tucked underneath his head and bare feet twitching, and says, “Maybe I should ask you to tie me up now.”

Ben snorts. “Absolutely not.”

“Aren't you always trying to play my guardian angel? In case I get tempted, Benji-boy. C’mon.”

“No.”

“But it would help. Maybe to see--”

Dave. Klaus doesn’t say his name, but Ben can hear it on the tip of his tongue. Ben had never been able to see Dave - Klaus getting whooshed to the past with that briefcase had taken him to a time period when Ben hadn’t been born yet, never mind dead - so all that he’s been able to learn is what he’d gathered from Klaus’ slurred drunken ramblings after returning to the present day. He’d felt -- happy for his brother, proud that Klaus had finally found someone, sad for his loss, although at the same time there’s this strange tight feeling that makes Ben want to fade away for eternity.

Gently, Ben says, “I’m not tangible enough yet.”

“You don’t even have to pick up the rope. You could -- hey,” Klaus says, interrupting himself, grinning, “Do you remember dancing with me? I’d been taking lessons from that ghost of a Broadway chorus girl and you found me prancing around. Wearing that black dress I’d gotten for our birthday.”

“‘Course I do. You dragged me around like a sack of potatoes.”

“But then you’d lifted me up. You’d let out those arms of yours--” Klaus wriggles his fingers for effect -- “wrapped me up like a hot dog in a bun, and danced with _me._ I asked you, Have you ever thought of other uses of those tentacles, and you’d blushed red like a tomato and ran away.”

“I don’t remember,” Ben lies. “But I’m not surprised. You’ve always had a dirty mind.”

“Dance with me now,” Klaus says, leaping to his feet and stretching out his hand.

 

XI.

 

Although most of them will never admit it, the Hargreeves kids all love to dance. There's something freeing about losing yourself in the beat and tempo of music. You're not trapped there in the song, but you're flowing along to it, free, and it's like they're being born again.

Spontaneous, miraculous, grasping, a cry trapped in your throat and something powerful surging in your limbs.

Ben's not surprised to hear his sister’s apocalyptic suite, and they all hold onto each other as the world shatters.

 

_end._

 

* * *

 

[New Zealand, the United States, and Australia are the top three ice cream consuming countries of the world. It takes about fifty licks to finish a single scoop of ice cream. The perfect temperature for scooping ice cream is between 5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, Five and Dolores fail to find a single intact frozen tub of ice cream in the ruins of the apocalypse.] 


End file.
